Sunday, 24 November 2013

In A Mad World Only The Mad Are Sane...

Dear friends,

Now you already know about my lucky Tuesday :) and about the fact that I managed to meet Cecilia finally! (yes, I am talking about The Lady With An Ermine...). But to be fair the whole day was very successful. We also managed to check for the first time the Manggha Museum which is right on the other side of the Vistula River, and you can have a very nice view from it when you are up in the Wawel Castle - the picture below was taken by my lovely fiance :)

Manggha (full name: Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology, until 2007: Manggha Centre of Japanese Art and Technology) is a museum in Kraków, Poland. Until 2005, it was a branch of the National Museum of Kraków.

Anonymous - Date of print: 1854
In the distance, over a band of clouds above Osaka's Dotonbori Canal packed with pleasure boats, we can see the roof of the Kado theatre with banners advertising actors of the Ichikawa family. The inscription in the picture refers to the popular actor Ichikawa Danjuro VIII, who committed suicide on the 6th day of the eight month of 1854 in Osaka.

Sadanobu (1809-1879)
Series: Naniwa hyakkei no uchi / One Hundred Views of Naniwa (Osaka)
Print title: Kawaguchi shunkei / Springtime Scenery at the Mouth of the River
Date of print: late 1850s
The inscriptions indicates that this is where the Aji River flows into the sea.

Yoshitaki (fl.c. 1854-1887)
Series: Naniwa hyakkei no uchi / One Hundred Views of Naniwa (Osaka)
Print title: The Pine Tree of Priest Rennyo at Morinomi-ya
Date of print: 1850s
The old large pine tree in front of the shrine became the symbol of the place and endowed it with special ambience.

Gyokuen (fl.1830-1861)
Series: One Hundred Views of the Old Capital (Kyoto)
Print title: Kurodani Temple
Date of print: late 1850s

In 1920, Feliks Jasieński—critic, writer and collector of art, whose
penname was "Manngha"—donated his collection of artworks connected with Japan to the National Museum in Kraków.
After his death, the collection was not exhibited, one reason being the
lack of space to arrange the 6500 items. The lone exception was an
exhibition in Cloth Hall of Kraków in 1944, organised by the Germans, who occupied Poland at the time. A young Andrzej Wajda saw the exhibition and became fascinated by Japanese art.
In 1987, almost half a century later, Andrzej Wajda received a film award in Kyoto.
He decided to donate the entire sum to the National Museum in Kraków to
build a brand new building in which to exhibit the entire collection.
Andrzej Wajda was supported by local authorities, the City of Kraków,
and the government of Japan with special help from Ambassador Nagao
Hyodo. The East Japan Railway Workers' Union with president Akira
Matsuzaki donated the equivalent of approximately $1MM U.S. to the
Kyoto-Kraków Foundation created by Andrzej Wajda and friends.
The building was designed by Arata Isozaki
(celebrated Japanese architect), who donated the design to the
Foundation. Krzysztof Ingarden, J.Ewy and JET Atelier were collaborating
architects on the Polish side. The exterior features of this modern
building—the roof resembles the sea in many old Japanese paintings—echo
both the museum's surroundings and some of the art housed within; the
garden next to the building is a gift of the City of Kyoto. It is a
contemporary structure that both complements and contrasts with the
ancient art of Japan, and contains both exhibition and conference rooms.
In addition to its permanent exhibitions, the Centre organises
temporary ones—mostly relating to Japanese art, culture and technology.
In addition, the Centre organises courses in tea brewing, Ikebana, and Japanese language. Manggha is the headquarters of the Polish Bonsai Club.
Manggha was opened on November 30, 1994.

Yoshitaki (fl. 1854 - c. 1887)
Date of print: 1875
Sheet from the newspaper Osaka Nishiki-e Shinbun (no.36) with a story about the sadistic punishment of a woman

Yoshitaki (fl. 1854 - c. 1887)
Date of print: 1875
Sheet from the newspaper Osaka Nishiki-e Shinbun with a story of a tortured girl

In 1997, Manggha received a Special Award of the Japanese Foundation.
On July 11, 2002, Manggha was visited by Emperor Akihito and his wife Michiko.
On the request of the Emperor, an exhibition of selected woodcuts of
the great Japanese artist Utagawa Hiroshige had been prepared. The
Emperor and his wife donated some audio-visual equipment to the Centre
(for the school of Japanese language).
In a 2006 architectural competition, the Centre was chosen as one of twenty most interesting examples of architecture in Poland built after 1989. - "Polska. Ikony architektury" ("Poland. Icons of Architecture").

a
rare series of Japanese woodblock prints from Osaka, 1780-1880 - See
more at:
http://culture360.org/event/luxembourg-treasures-of-kamigata-print-exhibition/#sthash.vae28cr4.dpuf

a
rare series of Japanese woodblock prints from Osaka, 1780-1880 - See
more at:
http://culture360.org/event/luxembourg-treasures-of-kamigata-print-exhibition/#sthash.vae28cr4.dpuf

I just love the tickets and the check-up procedure - cutting of the bonsai tree :)

Treasures of Kamigata - The work allows the public a glimpse into a fascinating, but as yet little known, chapter in the history of Japanese art. Kamigata refers to a region near Kyoto and Osaka where the works come from. Contrary to the Edo woodblock prints which have been widely collected and studied in Europe since the 19th century, the Kamigata prints were never produced in quantity and have had little public exposure or attention. This exhibition presents for the first time in Europe over 580 woodblock prints from private collections, many of which are extremely rare and have never been exhibited before.

***

Parts of the Expo: The AuthorKabuki scripts were generally considered the property of the theatre which hired the playwright. In the Edo period, most of them existed in manuscript form only. When a play was to be restaged, its author had to rewrite it to adapt it to the new cast... (now that is indeed an interesting idea!)

Above you can see the ceiling of this lovely part of the museum. I liked it very much as it gave me a sense of water environment... of floating and curving and bending in a weird way but yet in a very natural way :)

And here you can see my lovely other half checking the prints :)

Actors Dressing Room

Small details I liked on the prints... I was expecting more cherry blossoms but these were nice as well :)

More intricate details :)

And a really sad face :p

The Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology has prepared an exhibition entitled Max Ernst. Lover of Imagination. Books and Drawings. It is an exhibition of Max Ernst's (1891-1976) book illustrations and drawings prepared by Stuttgart’s Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen.

It presents 196 drawings that this outstanding artist created for works
by: Paul Eluard, Tristan Tzara, Hans Arp, Franz Kafka, Kurt Schwitters,
Antoin Artaud, Lewis Carroll, and texts by Andre Breton, leader of the
surrealist movement and author of a surrealist manifesto, as well as
collage books, such as: Histoire naturelle (1926), La femme 100 tête
(1929), and Rêve d’une petite fille qui volt entrer au Carmel (1930).
The exhibition documents Ernst’s works from the surrealist period in
particular, but it also includes the period of Dadaism and single
drawings from the later period, dominated by cubist and geometric
elements.P.S. You can see some of my fav above ;)

The Sketch of the Museum :)

Andrzej Wajda's Kyoto Prize :)

花鳥風月 (Kachou Fuugetsu) Literally: Flower, Bird, Wind, Moon
This means: Experience the beauties of nature, and in doing so learn about yourself.

晴天の霹靂 (Seiten no heki-reki) Literally: Thunderclap from a clear sky.
This means: A bolt from the blue. / A complete surprise.

見ぬが花 (Minu ga hana) Literally: Not seeing is a flower.
This means: Things will never be as you imagine, so you're better off not seeing them. / Reality can't compete with imagination.

Tickets
and opening hours of the Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology

The
Museum of Japanese Art and Technology "Manggha" is
open every day except Mondays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Regular
tickets cost 15 zloties, reduced 10 zloties. Available are
family tickets for adults with children priced at 25 zloties
and group tickets for 60 zloties. Admission to permanent
exhibitions is free on Tuesdays.

Now I - for one! - must admit that I will try to visit this lovely museum again :) I love it's architecture and its lines and it is indeed a very quiet and peaceful place, very balanced. And indeed along with the lovely weather and with seeing Cecilia that day, my Tuesday was puuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurfect! :)

I think I can safely say me and my fiance were 2 happy bumblebees and we were happy we were off for the day! We don't do that often but after a day like that I really wish we would! :)

**I was not payed in any way to do this post. I did it out of love for my friends, as I wanted to share this lovely day and this really really nice museum with you :) Hope you will try it and let me know what you think!**